


six degrees

by nonamebut



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: College AU, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Na Jaemin Are Best Friends, M/M, Matchmaker Mark, Na Jaemin-centric, jaemin is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 15:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19253905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonamebut/pseuds/nonamebut
Summary: If Jaemin’s heart beats for this boy, and no one is around to hear its erratic rhythm — thethud, thud, thudechoing down his chest — does it really make a sound?





	six degrees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mullethyuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mullethyuck/gifts).



> 0618 is ash day!!!! happy birthday ash <3 (please [greet her](http://twitter.com/mullethyuck) and [read her fic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mullethyuck/pseuds/mullethyuck) especially her own [yukmin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18845086) hehe!!!) you're like the Cool ty to my loser mark..... ilysm ;u;
> 
>  
> 
> [i'm sure it's nothing but some heartburn baby (i'm happy not knowing)](https://open.spotify.com/track/4hDBBUfxZom9yCl67A8UAe?si=VGZbPqLbS-uyyEBF64HT1g)

Jaemin isn’t always this distracted.  Normally, he’d be bossing his lab partner around by now, rushing them through today’s experiment with a confident, single minded focus.

Instead, he’s mostly sulking, quietly recording their data with a harsh scrawl.  His only main contribution performance wise was helping cut and prepare the filter paper.

This particular procedure isn’t that hard, all things considered.  And despite being downgraded to a team of one capable student and a breathing dead weight, the two of them certainly aren’t the last pair to complete the procedure by a long shot.  So in that sense, it’s not really that big a deal.

But when Jaemin thinks about it, isn’t it a bit strange that Xuxi, the sweet upperclassman who’s always minded Jaemin in his own warm, silly way... isn’t acknowledging this uncharacteristic behavior at all?

To be fair, Jaemin’s not _that_ close to his lab partner.  They only met two academic terms ago, when they first became lab classmates, and have since then stuck to each other.  (No pun intended, but they definitely had a lot of chemistry when it came to this kind of group work.)

When their professor tells them that they can start the last filtration, Xuxi just takes their stuff and heads to the back, where they can plug their dumb Büchner funnel and finally finish this dumb experiment.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m being weird today?” Jaemin finally gathers the courage to ask once they’re safely at the far end of the lab.  He tries mimicking the tone Donghyuck uses whenever he wants to needle something out of Mark.

Normally, Jaemin would be strengthening his overly confident image by now, flirting needlessly with Xuxi just to pass the time.  But today it’s Xuxi who fails to hide his smirk, who leans in just to blow air up the other’s bangs.

With a soft, breathy laugh, Xuxi says, “Well, if only because you’re being really cute about it… sure.”  Jaemin curls his hands into fists in the pockets of his wrinkled lab coat, impatient and antsy. “What’s going on with you, Nana?”

Xuxi prepares the filtration set up while Jaemin starts ranting about his dumb friends and their dumb ideas, the simple inquiry breaking the metaphorical dam.  All the silly things they insinuate about his love life (or rather, the extreme lack of) start rushing out of Jaemin, and just before he gets to the part of the story he’s _really_ been crazily annoyed at, he’s struck with a wild idea.

It’s wild, sure.  But as Jaemin watches Xuxi manage to set up the vacuum pump while also humoring Jaemin, somehow still asking him the right questions at the right pauses during Jaemin’s retelling, it all turns into a wild idea that might just work.

“Oh!”  Jaemin turns to his partner, his eyes shining with a newfound excitement.  “How about: you fake date me instead?”

Feeling particularly dramatic — and, okay, maybe because it’ll definitely get Xuxi on his side for sure — Jaemin uses his puppy gaze, brings out a little pout.  “It’ll get all my friends off my back! I just want them to stop meddling for a while, just until we finish the last of our exams.”

Xuxi blinks at him.  The Büchner funnel set up drones on between them.  Feeling his face heat up, Jaemin starts to backtrack, suddenly feeling so very stupid, _what the fuck Na Jaemin_ , but.

But.  Xuxi does that thing that makes his eyes crinkle up in a very, admittedly, cute way.  His expression is what Jaemin can only describe as amazement. “Why don’t I try dating you for real instead?”

Well, huh.  The sudden confession — _confession?!_ — almost makes Jaemin regret ranting in total Miss A style, tempts him to take back all the comments he made just a few seconds ago, the ones about not needing a man.

Yeah, school and volunteer work and family and friends have made Jaemin a little too busy for that kind of love, but even so, he is still happy.  All of this is only proof that romance isn’t some kind of college requirement.

Jaemin doesn’t need a man.  But if he did, would he — should he? — take Xuxi’s offer?

“Huh,” Jaemin says, and in a moment of pure unfiltered uncharacteristic weakness, Jaemin, for once, reevaluates.

 

—

 

See, the thing is: Jaemin isn’t a cynic, not by any means.  He believes in people, in love. It’s just that he’s a little bit sick of his know-it-all best friends trying to tell him how to live his (love) life.

Like, for example, take any time he and Donghyuck revise their biopsych notes together.  (Or any waking moment Donghyuck gets Jaemin all to himself, really, but for the purpose of this reevaluation Jaemin’s just going to flashback to this one particular memory.)

Holding up a neon green highlighter as if he’s a knight about to head into battle, Donghyuck-from-a-week-ago says, “Mark hyung wants to set you up with his new friend from dance club.”

The Jaemin that existed last week laughs, _what a funny joke, Hyuck_ , but minutes later when he looks up from his very chaotic parts-and-functions-of-the-brain flowchart, Donghyuck still wears that constipated, resigned expression.  The highlighter drops to the table with a theatrical clatter.

“Nooooooo.”  Jaemin kicks at Donghyuck’s chair from under the table.  “Tell your boyfriend that I’m not interested in blind dates right now.”

Donghyuck just continues talking, ignoring Jaemin’s request completely.  “This guy’s name is Lucas, I think? I tried searching him on Facebook but I couldn’t find him, sorry.  The only thing I really know about him is that he’s a sad sap who’s been pining for some other guy for waaaay too long.”  He pauses, a quiet smile slowly taking over his face, a soft beaming sunrise. “It’s nice of Mark hyung to help him get over some lame unrequited love.”

See, Jaemin isn’t the type to go around shouting ROMANCE IS DEAD, or whatever.  He thinks it’s sweet that two of his best friends got together in true 300k slowburn fashion.  But he also thinks that just because it happened to his two well meaning, but ultimately idiotic friends, it doesn’t mean that it will also happen to just anyone.

By that, he’s referring to himself.  Na Jaemin doesn’t have a childhood friend to pine over, or a soulmate to reconnect with in the infamous ChenJi style.  His life isn’t and will never play like some overrated coming of age teen movie.

Jaemin snorts.  “Now, just because you’re disgustingly in love, it doesn’t mean you have to ruin things for everyone else.  What if that guy actually _likes_ pining for whoever his crush is?”  He nods to himself. “And, more importantly!  I’m not lonely, okay?”

“Hey man,” Donghyuck says.  (Internally, Jaemin coos at how Mark-like Donghyuck has been sounding nowadays.  On the outside Jaemin just rolls his eyes.) “I’m just following the leader. Mark’s trying to hype you up to his friend all on his own.”

“That’s even more disgusting.  Do you not have a mind of your own?”  It takes a week for Jaemin to realize that this is the particular moment he makes a very significant, specific lie, but Jaemin-from-a-week-ago merely laughs.  “Who would want to be that whipped?”

 

—

 

Who would want to be that whipped, anyway?

Jaemin already quite likes the way his life is playing out right now, thank you very much.  There’s no way he’s going to mess with the easy balance he’s been maintaining for, what, almost a whole year?

He loves how his parents are continuously supportive of his dreams, even when he finally got the nerve to tell them he’d pursue psychiatry rather than become a surgeon like the rest of the Na family.  He loves how his friends, as annoying as they can be sometimes, can just sense when he’s stretching himself too thin. How they head over to his dorm armed with coffee flavored snacks, cheap Ryan merch, and the intent to make their visit all about _Jaemin_ and not anyone or anything else.

He loves his course, his professors who inspire him to learn more about how people work so he can one day become someone who can help them.  He even loves his classmates, his underclassmen, his upperclassmen. There’s his reliable same age friend whose love for dance reminds him of his own, and his tiny hoobae with a big heart who he always gives his old lecture notes to.

Then there’s Xuxi, his most helpful (and, alright, probably his _favorite_ ) senior.

Why would he want to ruin what he has, really?  He’s no Hazel Grace or whoever is the trendy YA Girl these days, but the rhythm his life has settled in is more than what he could have hoped for back when he was still a wee freshman.

Yeah, there are days that are happy, times when Donghyuck ropes him into his strangely creative pranks and when Xuxi treats him to lunch whenever they’re free.  Some days are more dramatic, like when Xuxi tells him all the gossip he heard from the psych department first, before he blabs to the rest of the student body, or when Chaeyeon melts down after their experiments yield zero significance.

And on days he can’t quite catch up with course work, there’s Xuxi who helps him with his neat notes and patient tutoring, who helps him even outside of class hours.  Sometimes they even study until it gets too dark, and sometimes they don’t even study altogether.

And no matter what they did, Xuxi would never fail to walk him back to his dorm.

Huh.

 

—

 

Hypothesis: If Jaemin really has, against all rational thought, fallen for Xuxi without even realizing it, then it can’t possibly mean Xuxi could have fallen for him too, right?

The first trial is in how Xuxi notices everything, from Jaemin’s new haircut to the slight scratch of his voice whenever he’s about to get sick.  Xuxi making the effort to check out the dramas he likes and the music he listens to, how he always sneaks in coffee for Jaemin during long lectures… there are all the observations he notes next, the thought of Xuxi actually being interested in his life making his heart do weird things in his chest.

Then there’s 3) Xuxi never failing to walk him to his 4pm class after they wrap up their organic chem lab, with Jaemin only finding out weeks later that Xuxi also has class at the same block of time — but at the opposite end of the campus.

Jaemin actually realized that third one before, a few months ago, but he hadn’t thought much of it at the time.  Instead, he’d ranted to Donghyuck about how he felt awful about it, not wanting to inconvenience anyone, especially if it’s someone he had mad respect for.

Rewinding back in time, Jaemin remembers Donghyuck saying, distractedly, “Maybe, I don’t know.  Let yourself be loved, taken care of? You deserve someone who can shower you with just as much love as you always tend to give.”

Jaemin replies, “That sounds too much like those dumb english movies you review for your dumb channel,” but in truth he’s too overwhelmed by the honest take to come up with an actual witty comeback.

Anyway, fast forward and press play.  That hypothesis might just be… valid.

It doesn’t have to mean anything, though.  Right? He took two whole terms worth of statistics, he knows his stuff.  Correlation, after all, does not equal causation. Jaemin’s not dumb.

But maybe he really is just a tad bit oblivious.

 

—

 

Alright.  Maybe Lee Donghyuck does have a point.

Xuxi drives the point home when he pulls Jaemin out of his tiny daydream, saying, “Wow, I really thought I was going to give up on you, you know?  I was really considering taking up my friend’s offer to set me up and get over you once and for all!”

“Huh?”

And there it is, quite literally staring him in the face with an exasperated (yet most definitely fond) expression.

Jaemin isn’t a cynic, not by any means.  He believes in people, in love. It’s true that he’s sick of his know-it-all best friends trying to tell him how to live his (love) life, but this time, just this one time, maybe he really has been overlooking… _something_.  See, the thing is —

 

—

 

“Woah,” Mark says when they all meet up after their lab ends.  “You guys already knew each other?”

Huh?  Jaemin turns to Xuxi, who goes from a look of dopey happiness to stark confusion.  “Wait, Mark. I thought the guy you were talking about was someone named Jaemin?”

When Mark smirks at the both of them, an eerie echo of his scheming boyfriend, Jaemin swings his backpack at Mark out of reflex.

The demon replica only laughs.  (Internally, Jaemin coos at how Donghyuck-like Mark has been sounding nowadays.  On the outside Jaemin just rolls his eyes.) “I was supposed to introduce you to Lucas, but I guess you guys didn’t need my help after all!”  He looks pointedly at Xuxi’s arm, which has somehow wrapped itself around Jaemin’s shoulders.

Every point of contact, despite being through layers of fabric, feels strange.  But not in a bad way. Jaemin doesn’t hate it.

“Nooo fucking way.”  The actual demon himself suddenly materializes, as if he had a seventh sense for any and all opportunities to tease the heck out of Jaemin.  “Babe… I can’t _believe_ you actually did it?  What the fuck?”

Before Mark can correct Donghyuck — and honestly, even if it comes at the cost of Jaemin’s pride, Jaemin thinks Mark should let him believe it because it’s perfect leverage and what Donghyuck doesn’t know won’t hurt him — Xuxi cuts in with a, “ _Babe_ ?  Dude, I thought you were dating Haechan, what the fuck!  Are you _cheating_ on him?”

“I… _am_ Haechan,” Donghyuck says, incredulous.  “It’s my channel username.”

Xuxi nods slowly.  Mark is still lost.  “Woah, wait, what just happened?”

While Markhyuck start to bicker, Xuxi turns to Jaemin with a face splitting grin.  It’s the cute one that makes his eyes crinkle. Xuxi pulls him closer, if that’s even possible.

“If you couldn’t tell, by the way…” A dramatic pause.  “I’m Mark’s dumb friend who couldn’t get over his big ass crush on his lab partner.”

“Huh,” Jaemin says, and in a moment of pure unfiltered uncharacteristic weakness, Jaemin, for once, reevaluates: maybe the universe really had set up a cute love story for him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> i still don't know how to jaemin pov but yukhei is a bigger mystery to me so here we are
> 
> also i was originally going to write a nohyuck but all i could come up with was sad and this is a HAPPY ONLY event i don't make the rules!!!


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